


Icarus

by Shaish



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, M/M, Post-Winter Soldier, Recovery, icarus - Freeform, introspective, thoughtful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:56:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flying too close to the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was brought on entirely by this post; http://polytropic-liar.tumblr.com/post/65188818206/modern-day-icarus-with-burns-on-his-back-and-full and the enablers in a group chat.
> 
> This story has been translated into Chinese here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2494373/chapters/5536436

His back burns for weeks, takes time scarring over that’s still fast compared to the average person, but painstakingly slow. He’ll find it symbolic (and ironic) later, that it takes the same amount of time for his mind to start mending, too.

He didn’t even know it was broken until the flashes started.

It’s slow at first, and then it rushes out like a dam that’s finally incapable of holding it all _back_ , and he ends up on his knees most of the time with a hand buried in his hair, flesh and blood fingers pressing against his skull, only blinking back to the present when the random tidal wave has passed.

Steve is always there, worried eyes on his and sometimes a hand on his shoulder, touching, touching anywhere he’ll let him (he’s broken Steve’s wrist three times, his hand twice, and his arm once, and still he touches like he’s unafraid. It makes something that he’s starting to think might be ugly but raw twist in his gut). Steve’s stopped asking if he’s okay, because it’s a foolish question and they both know it, so now he just looks at him, all blue eyes and honest worry, and it makes him hurt and want _someone else_ to hurt.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t hurt Steve beyond unconscious reflex, because he hurts him enough already with his silence and sometimes his rarely spoken words, and he doesn’t hurt Steve’s friends, who offer him shelter and a place to try to put himself back together.

\--

He doesn’t respond to Steve’s ‘Bucky’, nor does he respond to Natasha’s (Natalia’s) ‘James’. Neither feel right, no matter what he logically _knows_. Even with his slowly returning memories, they don’t either of them feel like _him_ , not anymore. He’s been through too much, changed too much (or maybe became too much of who he actually is), and the names don’t settle with him like they once did at different points in his life.

The life he has now is different, new even with the old tacked on and trying to drag him down, and he is not the people he used to be (“Bucky,” “James,” “Yasha,” “The Asset,”), he is different now. He is-

“It’ll be winter soon,” he hears Steve say from where he’s looking out at the city, almost silhouetted by the skyline outside the large, floor to ceiling windows, and his head snaps up in Steve’s direction. Steve notices, because Steve notices everything he does, and his eyes widen slightly at him. “What is it?”

“Say that again,” he says quietly. And it’s not new to demand, but it is new to demand in this context. This...situation. He’s demanded for weapons, for guns and knives and information, but never for something like this.

Steve turns to fully face him, shadowed in cool colors from the clouds working on conjuring rain behind him, bathed in blues and grays. It makes his eyes stand out more, somehow, but the cool colors make them no less warm to look at.

“It’ll be winter soon?” Steve says.

It comes out like a question, and he sits up a little straighter at the table, left hand’s fingers curling slightly, metal sliding against wood.

“That’s me,” he says, so quiet.

Steve’s eyebrows pull together a little, hands sliding out of his jean pockets. “What’s you?”

He looks at Steve, makes sure he has his attention (but he knows he _always_ has Steve’s attention), and says on a breath, “ _Winter_.”

Steve’s jaw and hands clench briefly before he lets the tension go, shoulders relaxing and not quite slumped, eyes dropping to the floor briefly before rising back up to his face. He smiles, something small and a little sad, but still warm, somehow, so warm. It warms up something a little more in him each time, every time.

“Okay,” Steve says, just as soft as he was quiet, and something finally settles in his bones. He’s found a piece of himself, of who he is now.

\--

Natalia (Natasha) tells him to listen to a song that she heard recently, five months later, and he finds himself doing it not because she ordered it, but because he is curious. Still, he can’t just go and do it without giving her some grief.

“Why should I?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest like he’s fourteen again and his ma’s caught him doing something he can’t quite remember. He’s got most of his memories back now, but it’s still not all there. Might never be.

“Because it’s a friendly suggestion,” she replies, deadpan as ever.

He lets out a bark of a laugh, all dark humor and none of the bright kind that Steve can get out of him these days. Once in a while.

But he looks it up, and immediately hates it. Hates that the words, too, settle down into his bones, just like his name. It’s a part of him now, and he can never escape it.

\--

He doesn’t treat Steve like he’s delicate. He won’t hurt him, but he won’t handle him like he’s made of glass either. Steve is not made of glass, regardless of what others may think. His body is strong, reforged into something made for war (like his), his mind is quick and sharp and can hold more information than anyone else he knows (including him), and his heart is made of the same metal of his shield, capable of shielding all he loves and deflecting almost everything trying to break it (except him).

So he does not treat Steve like the ‘delicate flower’ Tony sometimes likes to call him, and he ignores the looks he gets for doing so.

“You shouldn’t eat pizza with your left hand, Buck,” Steve says, the nickname slipping out like it always will for Steve (so he does not mind), “You’ll get grease in the joints again.”

He snorts, then continues eating said pizza with said left hand. “Right. Because I’m using it for _so many other things_.”

Steve rolls his eyes while the others dart glances, and Tony tries to hold in what sounds like a strangled snort at the obvious joke he can make, but one look from Pepper keeps his mouth shut.

The first time he’d done it, Steve’s eyes had widened and his mouth had pinched. Apparently Bucky Barnes wasn’t that kind of cynic, and the other variations of him didn’t have a use for much cynicism, but he finds it rolls off his tongue easier than anything else, and it covers him in a blanket of barbs that keep people away.

Except Steve, because Steve won’t ever stay away, not unless he asks him to (and maybe not even then).

“You should come down and train with us some time,” Clint says, a few days later, opening the fridge and rifling through it.

“Why?” Winter asks, “So you can catalogue my weaknesses and save them for when you need to put an arrow through my head?”

Clint pauses, turning towards him and letting the refrigerator door fall shut with the sound of rubber meeting plastic, snacks forgotten. “Why do you do that?”

He looks up from where he’s been reading _Lord of the Rings_. He wants to finish the books (which Steve has already done) before watching the movies (which Steve refuses to watch without him). “Do what?” he asks.

“Be so... _cynical_ all the damn time,” Clint says, raising an eyebrow.

Winter shrugs, dropping his eyes back to his book. “Why are you always eating?”

“I’m _not always_ -”

Winter looks towards the fridge with a raised eyebrow and Clint cuts himself off, lips pursing.

Clint leaves shortly after that (without food), and Winter goes back to his book.

\--

He pauses at the corner that turns out onto the hall, listening to the voices at the end of it.

“I thought he was supposed to be charming,” Clint says, sounding unimpressed.

“He’s been through a lot,” Steve replies, “And he’s not who he was before.”

“So...he’s basically a stranger,” Clint says next.

The sound of shifting.

“Not exactly,” Steve says, quieter after a moment, “He’s just...shaped different.”

A pause.

“Don’t give me that look. It’s hard to explain,” Steve says next, a little defensive.

Another pause.

“It’s like…” Steve trails off after a moment, voice quieter, more thoughtful, “It’s like when a sword is broken, and you reforge it back together. It looks almost like it used to, but you know it’s not exactly how it was before. It’s something new, put together from the previous parts. He’s...He’s the same Bucky, but he’s also a new Bucky. He’s Winter.”

Silence for a long moment.

A sigh.

“Alright, Cap,” says Clint. The sound of shifting. “If you say so.”

“You’re blind to Icarus,” comes Natasha’s voice. Winter stiffens. He didn’t know she was there too.

Clint makes an indignant sound. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” she returns, and Winter turns around to head back into the elevator.

\--

“You should spar with us,” Tony says one morning. Has actually managed to _corner him_ in the communal kitchen. He’s getting sloppy. “Some group sparring. It’ll be fun!” he says when Winter doesn’t reply, hair pulled back into a tidy bun but eyes half open, everything bleary. Serum or not, he needs coffee. Steve’s floor is out of coffee. _He needs coffee_.

“No,” he says flatly, turning back towards the coffee machine.

He hears Tony shift. He hears Tony shift _a lot_.

“ _Come on_ ,” Tony wheedles.

Where is-

He opens a cupboard.

“It _will_ be fun. We can play ‘keep away Cap’s shield’, and you can hammer on Thor’s hammer with that metal arm of yours. That you should let me take a look at. In the immediate, very near future,” Tony continues.

He’s growing frustrated. Where is-

Ah. There they are.

He pulls the bag of coffee beans down and closes the cupboard, turning back around and walking straight past Tony. “No.”

He hears footsteps following, doesn’t bother to hold in his groan.

“ _Pleeease_ ,” Tony draws out in a whine, not even _practically_ whining, just straight out _whining_ , “I really want to take a look at your arm and Steve’s been taking out all of his frustrations on everyone,” he lets out in a rush. Winter pauses, briefly, before he keeps walking, barefoot down the hall. “He _literally_ hit me so hard he dented my faceplate yesterday.” Winter grunts. He can’t fault Steve for doing  _that_. “Whatever you two are doing behind closed doors, or in public, it’s a preference, or _aren’t_ doing, he’s taking it out on the rest of us. And if _you’re_ there, maybe he’ll take it easi-”

“ _No_ ,” Winter cuts him off, watching the elevator doors slide closed on Tony’s face, mouth still open mid-complaint.

\--

Steve comes back from his morning run while the coffee’s brewing, comes out of the shower just after Winter’s taken his first sip where he’s sat cross legged on the wood floor in front of one of the huge, frameless windows, another mug already filled and set out on the counter. He catches Steve move into his periphery (on his left), sitting down next to him, cross legged on the floor, coffee not sloshing a bit. “Thanks,” he says, a smile in his voice, taking a sip.

Winter grunts, taking another sip of his own. He’s going to need at least _three more_ cups to feel awake enough for _anything_. They both will.

“Sorry about Tony,” Steve says after a minute. He glances over, but Steve’s eyes are on the city. He looks back forward, out at the city as well. If he looks too long at Steve, Steve will know.

They sit in silence for a few more minutes, just sipping their coffees. He breaks it by asking, “Are you?” He sees Steve turn his head towards him out of the corner of his eye, but keeps his own looking forward. “Are you…” he’s not sure how to finish the question.

A shoulder bumps into his after a moment and he lets it move him, just a little, rock him gently. He looks over.

Steve’s got a gentle smile curving up his lips, steam from the mug rising up from where it’s being held above his lap, steam wafting up just a hairs breadth from touching his skin. Steve turns to look back out at the city, Winter doesn’t.

“No,” Steve says, quieter, “Not all the time. Sometimes, I just-” he cuts himself off, smile a little smaller, but still there. Winter keeps his eyes on him. He’s not sure he could drag them away if he tried. “Sometimes, I miss you, even when you’re here.”

He swallows, stays silent for a moment. “Sometimes, I miss me, too,” he admits quietly.

Steve looks down into his coffee, doesn’t look at him because he knows Winter doesn’t want him to, and he’s...No one does things for him without him asking, knows what he wants without him having to say. Only Steve. It’s only ever been Steve.

The back of his eyes sting.

He starts humming that song he hates when Steve stays quiet, and Steve turns his head to look over at him, sitting up a little straighter, eyes a little wider. “What is that?” he asks, after a moment, eyes locked on his.

He pauses his humming. “A song. About me. All of me.”

Steve sits forward a little, sets his coffee down on the floor next to him. “Do you know the lyrics?”

Winter nods once, setting his own cup down. “I know the parts the matter, here, now.”

Steve sits still, waits, always so patient when it counts, and Winter sings, low and soft.

“Standing on a cliff face, highest fall you’ll ever grace, it scares me half to death. Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing, so take another breath. Your hands protect the flames from the wild winds around you.” Steve’s eyes widen. They’re closer now. “Icarus is flying too close to the sun. And Icarus’ life it has only just begun. And this is how it feels to take a fall. Icarus is flying towards an early grave.”

Steve swallows, but they’re so close now he can’t see it, can only hear it. Only sees the blue of his eyes, the healthy color in his face. Just the blue, the blue that’s-

“Was it worth it?” Steve asks after a moment, almost a whisper, breath ghosting across his mouth. “Was it worth the fall?”

Bucky, James, Yasha, The Asset, Winter puffs out a breath, feels it mingle with Steve’s.

“Idiot,” he says, just as quiet, knows his eyes are as fond as only Steve’s ever are, “You were always worth it. Worth every fall.”

And he’s not sure who leans in first, maybe it was at the same time, all cheesey and romantic like those Disney movies they finally caught up on, but their lips press together in the softest kiss he’s ever had, remembered and not, and he feels himself burn up from ice to fire from the inside out because Steve is the sun.

\--

“So?” Clint asks. Natasha doesn’t look up.

“‘So’, what?”

“So, what’s Icarus’ secret?”

She memorizes the line she just finished reading and looks up, lips curving, just slightly. “Icarus’ secret,” she says, “Is that even after his wings were burned, he still flies too close to his sun.”

Clint frowns a little, expression slowly clearing as that sinks in. He smirks after a moment, reclining back in his chair, tilting it back on its hind legs. “Hey, JARVIS?” he calls out to the ceiling.

“ _Yes, Agent Barton?_ ”

“Could you pull up today’s security footage of whatever you have of Steve and Barnes? I want to see that idiots’ lovestruck face so I can make fun of him for it later.”

“ _I don’t think that_ -”

Natasha kicks Clint’s shin hard under the table, eyes calmly on her book while Clint and the chair fall back, arms pinwheeling briefly in her periphery before she hears him land on the floor with a _grunt_ and _clatter_.

“Nevermind, JARVIS,” she says.

“ _Yes, ma’am_.”

 

Icarus’ secret is that even without his wings, feathers full of memories he might never fully get back, he can still fly too close to his sun.

And maybe he’ll get burned again, and maybe he’ll fall again, but that’s love, and even when he didn’t fully know who he was, he always kept trying to find the sunlight filtering through the clouds of the winter sky.

And even if he didn’t know exactly what to look for, some part of him recognized it when he saw it, and let the burning rays melt some of the ice.

 

Because he used those wings just to fly near the sun, and even when people tried to take that away from him, some part of him always remembered, whether he knew it or not. And if he ever forgot, the sun would always remember for him, and melt the ice away again.


	2. Icarus II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...This didn't follow the format of the first one, but I like it enough to leave it as it is. Um. [/casually adds this part] [/whistles]

Steve wakes, slow, but doesn’t shift. He can feel skin warmed metal resting on top of his sternum.

He blinks his eyes open slowly and looks down to find the hand its attached to resting over his heart, trails the arm down and over to find Winter staring at where the fingers are resting, eyes the kind of focused The Winter Soldier gives his targets. It should probably scare him, but-

“This should scare you,” Winter says, quiet and dangerously soft. He doesn’t look up at Steve. “I could rip it right out.”

Steve hums quietly in agreement, heartbeat a steady thing in his chest, breathing even. “You could,” he concedes, just as soft. Winter’s eyes finally dart up to meet his.

“You’d let me,” he says, not a question, eyes widening slightly. “ _You’d let me_.”

It’s-” Steve starts.

“ _ **Don’t**. Don’t_ say something stupidly romantic like, ‘ _it’s been yours since as long as I can remember_ ’,” Winter cuts him off, a little viciously, “This isn’t a _romantic comedy_.”

Steve shakes his head slightly, eyes dropping to the metal. “No. It’s a _romantic tragedy_. Though I do think I can be pretty funny.” Bucky gives him a Look, and Steve smiles a little. “I wasn’t going to say that. Even though it’s true,” he adds with a small quirk of his lips. Winter glares at him, far more awake than his sleep mussed hair would suggest.

Steve reaches up, ignores the slight digging of metal fingertips into his skin when he does, and brushes his own flesh fingers across the top of it, feeling the grooves and slats in the metal. “I just-”

“Don’t say you ‘ _trust me’, either_ ,” Winter cuts him off again, glaring across the room this time when Steve looks. “Even though you’re stupid and I know you _do_ ,” he half mumbles. Steve’s lips pull up a little more. Winter stiffens a little, but doesn’t pull away, not yet. “Say what you really mean, Rogers,” he adds after a moment, a little quieter, still glaring at the wall.

Steve looks back at the hand, at his own fingers still tracing over the grooves in it, feeling where the metal is still slightly dug into his skin. “I love you,” he says simply, but the gravity of it is there, and he can tell Winter feels it because the fingertips dig in harder, just enough to hurt.

“ _Stupid_ ,” Winter mumbles, still glaring at the wall and not looking at him, “ _Love is for children_.”

Steve shakes his head a little after a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Love is for anyone, everyone. But if you want to be like that,” he adds when Winter’s eyes flick up to his, “I never grew up. Not really.”

Winter stares at him for a long while, long enough for Steve to reach up around and trace the edge of one of the burn scars on his back, Winter’s head resting on his shoulder.

 _It should be romantic_ , Steve thinks, but Winter’s tense and not blinking and his arm is heavier than it looks, _Winter_ is heavier than he looks, solely because of it. But the weight that isn’t physical is there, in every pore and line of him, and that’s the heaviest of it all.

“If I did grow up,” Winter says finally, barely audible even to Steve’s ears, “Would you still love me?”

Steve’s eyes soften and he feels Winter tense more because he hates it sometimes, when Steve puts any shield he might have, physical or otherwise, down around him. Steve knows why, and that’s how he knows that Winter cares about him.

When Winter bites at him with his sarcasm and his words, when he doesn’t treat Steve with kid gloves, on the mat or off, each little word, little gesture, is him telling Steve that he cares about him, is worried and harsh with it because he doesn’t know how to be gentle with it anymore, and all he can mostly do now is lash out when he’s afraid, fear and worry coming out like anger, when Steve knows better just by looking into his eyes. He can see the fear, the worry, the terror of it, even when most of the others can’t (Natasha will always be an exception).

It lets Steve know that this version of Bucky is not just putting up with him, but wants to stay.

Putting up with the others, maybe, some of the time, but not Steve.

“I would,” Steve says, softer, “I do. But I don’t think either of us really grew up.”

Winter quirks a brow, but his body’s still tense, metal fingers still digging bruises into Steve’s skin. “I remember enough to know that ain’t true.”

Steve shakes his head. “Growing up too fast isn’t really growing up at all. The responsibilities are there, and they’re demanding and pushy, but we were never really grown ups. We never really had a clue what we were doing.”

Winter snorts, and it takes a little of the tension in his body away. “You sayin’ no one’s really a grown up?” he asks.

Steve hums in mock consideration, looking up at the ceiling. “Natasha sends me smiley faces when she texts, Clint eats entire pizzas by himself and then falls asleep on the couch with his face half pressed into the cushions, snoring like a lumberjack. Bruce almost always trips on something when he visits Tony in Tony’s lab, then looks around like maybe he got caught. Thor watches cat videos more than even Tony does.” Steve shrugs, looking down to find Winter with a raised brow, lips almost curved up at the edges. “Pepper’s probably the closest.”

“And you?” Winter asks after a moment, louder, but still quiet.

Steve’s lips curl up. “I get ink stains on everything,” he says, reaching towards Bucky’s face to brush a fingertip on the edge of his jaw when Bucky lets him, over a blue ink smear there. Winter’s lips _do_ twitch at that. “And I get behind in my laundry nearly every week.”

They’re quiet for a minute, the humor almost entirely leaving Winter’s eyes, replaced by that same deep-rooted fear Steve’s one of the only people capable (and allowed) of seeing. Steve can almost hear the rapid stream of, “ _I’m not like them, I’m not like them, I’m not like anyone_ ,” darting through Bucky’s head.

“And me…?” Winter finally asks next, after another tense moment, almost inaudible again.

Steve looks at him, looks over the mess of his hair that’s a little longer than it was when Steve first ran into him in this century, looks over the small lines at the corners of his eyes, the light shadows under them, the stubble on his face and the ink stain on his jaw.

His eyes linger there for a moment before shifting back to Winter’s, a smile on his face. “You can’t go a morning without coffee and threaten to kill Tony at least seven different ways every time he tries to get you to let him look at your arm.” Winter stiffens a little more, but Steve goes on. “You can get your hair in a perfect bun first thing in the morning, but the only thing keeping you from running into a door frame before you’ve had coffee is your training. You stare at the city for hours at a time out the windows and look the most relaxed I ever see you. You blow bubbles in your chocolate milk when you think I can’t hear it, same with muting the tv on infomercials late at night and dubbing them with your own dialogue.”

Steve raises an eyebrow and Winter ducks his head slightly, cheeks faintly pink, but he keeps his eyes on Steve’s. Steve reaches up to push some of Winter’s bangs back behind his ear, letting his hand move back down to his chest to trace ridges in metal again. “You purposefully mismatch your socks so that one is red and one is blue, and you like to spell ‘ _colour_ ’ with a ‘ _u_ ’ because you think it looks better. You’re far from an adult, Winter.”

The pressure on his chest has slowly let up throughout all of his talking, and now the digits are just resting lightly on his over warmed skin, giving a slight twitch with each of Steve’s heart beats. He’s not sure Winter realizes he’s doing it.

Winter stares at him for another long minute, eyes almost completely unreadable now, but still vulnerable somehow. He shifts up after a moment and Steve lowers his head, pressing their lips together in the lightest brush of a kiss.

They pull back, and Winter stares at him. “You really do need to keep up with your laundry, Rogers,” he says, and Steve’s lips curve up. Winter’s do too a little.

And it’s Winter telling Steve that he loves him, that he cares, in his own way.

The sun finally manages to reach up high enough to stretch its rays just over the top of the bottom of the large window behind Bucky, and the sunlight lights his hair up like dark autumn leaves.

The tension slowly bleeds out of Winter (but never completely), like the feel of the warm sun on his back was the final key, and his eyes are half closed, focused on Steve ( _always focused on Steve_ ).

And deadly as Steve knows he is, the find point of a blade and the bullet in a gun, he’s still a kid from Brooklyn, just like Steve.

And he’s beautiful and burning, like the sun.

\--

“You didn’t tell him which one,” Bruce says calmly with his eyes focused on his Genetics book.

“Hmm?” Natasha asks, cleaning one of her guns next to him at the table.

“You didn’t tell Agent Barton which one was Icarus and which one was the sun,” Bruce clarifies, turning a page, “He assumed it was Barnes.”

Natasha’s lips curve up. “You know which is which.”

Bruce hums a light agreement, glancing up at her briefly before looking back down at a page. “Yes. Both. Which is why it’ll take him a while to figure out.”

“And I look forward to dangling that fact in front of him like a carrot,” Natasha says, reassembling her gun before standing up.

Bruce hums again, lips curved up at the corners. “Off to give him a tantalizing hint?”

Natasha quirks her lips and heads for the elevator.


End file.
